Seth Alvo says impersonation comes with the territory when you run a successful YouTube channel. This time, the scammer succeeded.
“Someone pretended to be me and they successfully defrauded multiple bike companies, convincing them by email to ship tens of thousands of dollars worth of costly e-bikes to an address in North Carolina,” Alvo said in a recent Berm Peak video.
According to Alvo, the person did not rely on sloppy copy or mass emails. “But this scammer mimicked my style, created formal business proposals, forged my analytics, lied about my strategies and engaged in long, detailed email threads, demonstrating the kind of knowledge that only a longtime viewer might possess,” he said.
The scammer also used “a very convincing fake email address and a convincing Google voice number with an 828 area code,” plus a North Carolina shipping address, which aligned with where Alvo actually lives.
The communications firewall
A key reason the scam was uncovered, Alvo says, is that he does not personally handle most brand correspondence.
“Meet Daniel. Daniel manages Berm Peak Substack and My Communications,” Alvo said, crediting his communications manager with spotting inconsistencies early.
Red flags
The scam first surfaced when Superhuman Bikes emailed Daniel asking if an outreach message was legitimate. The email address raised questions, though Alvo noted that a Gmail account alone is not proof of fraud.
After confirming the message was fake, Superhuman forwarded the full thread. Alvo described the writing as polished and unsettlingly familiar, including lines such as, “That made my day. I love hearing that you and the team enjoy my content.”
The scammer then layered in detailed ride plans and product praise designed to sound authentic.
“I would never say followed by a thrilling descent, but a large language model would,” Alvo said.
Fake data, real consequences
Alvo said the scammer also fabricated screenshots of YouTube analytics.
“A YouTube creator would know it’s fake, but 99 per cent of people wouldn’t.”
He believes AI tools played a role. “This is a pretty clever scammer, but it’s unlikely he did this without the help of Chat GPT,” Alvo said.
Soon after, other brands reported similar emails. Goat Power Bikes grew suspicious when the scammer pushed early for a shipping address. Instead of shipping, the company DM’d Alvo on Instagram.
Daniel replied directly: “That’s not Seth. Can you go ahead and…
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